Magic Find Swapping

Swapping in your +Magic Find gear right before a boss dies is not going to be an option for long. I mentioned last week that this is a great opportunity to make gold between now and the implementation of a fix, since gear with damage stats and magic find will jump in value when Blizzard takes corrective action. Whatever they do, they will reduce the value of pure Magic Find gear since it will no longer be an affective way to increase loot.

This option would include setting a cap on the total magic find you have at any given time. Nephalem Valor already contributes 75% to this, so players would need anywhere from 25% to 125% more +Magic Find to reach a 100-200% +Magic Find cap.

This option does not remove the incentive to swap gear in and out, it just makes it easier. While the hard cap would add an interesting element to gearing-mechanics, it wouldn’t solve the problem in my opinion.

Option 2: Slowly Adjust Magic Find Over Time

As soon as you equip as piece of +Magic Find gear your Magic Find remains the same but starts to go up over a period of time. If you equip a +20% piece but already have +100%, you might see 101% for a few seconds, 102% for a few seconds until a minute later you reach 120% total.

This option would certainly solve the problem.

Option 3: Use your average Magic Find % or your lowest Magic Find % of the last 5 minutes

This would essentially introduce a moving average of your magic find over the last 5 minutes. This would certainly solve the problem of swapping in Magic Find gear but it adds unneeded complication to the game. This is a terrible option in my opinion.

Option 4: Zero-Out Your Magic Find % for 3 Minutes After Swapping

Initially this seems like the best option, but Blizzard points out that some players would be confused why their stat is at 0% while others would be unduly punished for swapping other gear. It’s not necessary to reset Magic Find completely, so in light of option #2 above, this option kind of sucks.

Option 5: Gear Swapping Interacts with Nephalem Vaor

Blizzard tossed this option into the list to encourage more conversation while listing 2 long paragraphs of “cons” and only one sentence of “pros.” They obviously don’t like this option and neither do I. It’s not necessary to tweak NV just because players are swapping in and out Magic Find gear.

I definitely think Option 2 (slowly adjust Magic Find) is the obvious winner and will be the one that Blizzard implements. You can read their full post here, either way please vote above and let me know what you think.

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